008 - Stop Putting TRUST In People

In the last issue, we talked about the trust that has been broken in the online marketplace.

Today, we're flipping it on ourselves.

Where is our trust at?

Do we trust ourselves?

Do we trust God?

Do we trust people?

Should we even trust people?

What does it all look like?

Take a friend of mine.

He purchased a sweater through an Instagram ad.

A month later that sweater was nowhere. So, he reached out, curious where it was.

Support told him it'll be shipped.

Yet, a month later, it still wasn't shipped.

This time when he reached out, he got no response.

A couple weeks later the website, the Instagram account, and everything else about that business completely disappeared.

It was wiped from existence.

Naturally, my friend doesn't trust buying anything from Instagram ever again.

And, I can guess, we could all make a HUGE list of people and entities that have broken our trust.

We expected something and didn't get it.

Plus, let's be honest, there are probably people out there that feel like we broke their trust.

And maybe we did.

So, what do we do with all of this messy, broken trust within us.

For some of us, it's made us angry. Bitter even.

Now, when we see that person who used us wrongly, we avoid contact.

We're controlled by what they did and how we feel.

Well, today, let's deal with that.

First of all, let's set a foundation.

Here's the reality. People make mistakes. And some people are downright evil in their intentions.

They will mess up.

This is why we get to learn to LOVE people instead of let our TRUST (or lack thereof) dictate how we feel about them.

Through LOVE, we see where they're really at.

What they're really controlled by.

Some are controlled by the spirit of greed and lust.

So, they do what they do without realizing it.

It's the very reason that Jesus, on the cross, asked the Father to forgive the crucifiers because "they know not what they do".

Other people are "innocently" making mistakes.

For example, take the Instagram business. Chances are they were "SOLD" on this idea of having a Shopify store.

So, they started up with a BIG focus on sales.

But, they sold so much they didn't know HOW to fulfill.

Their lack of fulfillment finally caught up to them where the only way out they saw was to delete everything.

I doubt they purposefully started with a goal to scam people.

However, through ignorance, and lack of knowledge (and experience), it ended up that way.

Still not right.

But, it happened.

For others, they never actually have broke trust, but you had expectations on them that they didn't meet.

Expectations that they didn't know about OR that were placed on the WRONG person.

This is what happens in a lot of relationships.

People EXPECT things, never speak it out, and therefore when people don't meet those expectations, they feel like trust was broken.

Or, we blame wrongly.

We do this a LOT with God.

We blame Him for things that the enemy (and the sin that's in the world) created.

For example, when my dad passed away, I blamed God initially.

But, then I realized that it's the enemy that is out to kill, steal, and destroy. Not God.

The truth is, we've been given dominion on the earth.

Due to get selfishness, sin entered the world, and sin has wrecked havoc on the world.

Now the world is waiting for the children of God to rise up and establish the Kingdom (Romans 8:19).

So, if trust is so easily broken among humanity, how do we approach it?

Here's what I've learned to do.

1. Don't entrust yourself to people.

John 2:24 "But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, because He knew all people."

In other words, Jesus expected man to mess up because their hearts were messed up.

Personally, my trust is not in man.

I know that man will mess up. My life doesn't come by man's ability to show up for ME.

I'm already full in Christ.

Which leads to point two.

2. Fall fully into trust with God.

While man isn't trustworthy by themselves, God is fully trustworthy.

However, if we're honest many of us don't truly believe that God is trustworthy.

This is because of two things.

First, we've blamed God for things He didn't do.

We must take a moment, get honest about what we've blamed God for, and realize that it was sin in the world connected to men that couldn't be trusted, that caused the issues.

Then, we get to forgive God and see Him for who HE REALLY IS.

Second, we've FORGOTTEN and taken for granted the things that God actually did do.

This was the sin of Israel in the desert. They forgot the goodness of God.

We do the same.

Sometimes, all we need to do is take time to remember God's goodness.

List it out and thank Him for all the times He saw you through.

All good things come from HIM.

When we fully trust God, then we can see humanity as it is and it'll help us walk into the next step.

3. Then, LOVE people fully

You see, in love, we don't NEED trust.

Because no matter what people do, we step into a place of love for them.

This is a love that sees beyond the thing they did and CARES for their hearts.

It's the love the God demonstrated when, "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

He didn't WAIT for us to make ourselves ready.

He did it without our permission.

He completely set us free.

In the same way, we are called to love others.

You see, if we only follow steps 1&2 above, we'll step into a very nihilistic view of the world.

A view where nothing matters and there isn't any hope for people.

However, in LOVE, we EXPECT all things for all people.

We expect people (who mess up) to be fully redeemed and set free.

We expect goodness to wash over the world.

This is an intense amount of HOPE for everything.

The Conclusion

To break it all down for you, this is how to walk in TRUST & LOVE:

Don't expect things FROM people.

But, fully TRUST the Spirit to work in every moment.

Therefore, you get to EXPECT good things FOR all people.

This means, you're always in a STATE of trust, because the Spirit is always with you.

It also means that you aren't controlled by people who mess up.

And, instead you have a true HEART for all people.

From this place, you can actually build businesses, and experiences for people that are genuinely good.

Experiences that break past their own state of DISTRUST.

I talk more about those experiences here.